The Role Optimism Plays in Early Retirement

Retire Early

I have been thinking about the Role Optimism Plays in Early Retirement and financial independence. I was primarily thinking about its role in my early retirement but I believe there is a sharable message here. First off, putting me and optimism together is funny. Funny because in my first career everyone considered me to be the most pessimistic engineer on the team. I was just doing my job covering Black-Hat thinking scenarios.

Yet I remained super optimistic about my ten-year plan to retire by age 50. I did actually retire at the age of 51 in 2009 when I optimistically walked out the door for the last time after 31 years. Making my escape while everyone said I was crazy to retire during the biggest recession of our lifetime.

I had always planned on pursuing new opportunities of interest that were aligned with my passions. Telling all I was going to retire early and often. So after some months of leisure in 2010 I optimistically went for it. I ended up landing a couple of awesome jobs and turned one into an encore career. I found success even though everyone said I was a crazy old fart to think I could be picky and land a new opportunity when unemployment was sky-high.

When I retired for the second time just before my 56th birthday everyone said I was crazy because I was too young to retire and too old now to be rehired anywhere. I optimistically enjoyed several months of retirement before being invited to do a sweet side hustle. It definitely  padded my early retirement funding a bit more. I wasn’t even looking for anything.

It would be a huge understatement to say that I am very optimistic about my return to early retirement in a couple of months. Nobody is calling me crazy anymore.

Optimism is a Non-Financial Aspect of Early Retirement.

Anyone striving for financial independence and early retirement is an optimist. We invest because we believe there will be growth. You can’t be a dooms-day pessimist putting all your money under your mattress and expect to ever accumulate the funds necessary to allow for your early retirement.

Without optimism I would have never walked out that door. Away from my paycheck, the work, my co-workers and work friends without having the optimism that I was ready and willing for my next freedom phase of life.

Optimism is what makes early retirement enjoyable. Without having optimism my retiring early and often, pursuing passions, reaching for goals, the leisure, the travel, the time itself would be less than satisfying if I was mired in worry and pessimistic dread.

The Secret to the Power of Optimism.

Optimism doesn’t do it by itself. It has two friends that give it the power to make things happen the way we want it to. Those two friends are Competence and Confidence. The great thing about these two dudes is they freely came my way through educating myself. And by just being curious about how things really work. By doing all the necessary research and then putting what I have learned into practice.  I have no reason to not be competent and confident about my early retirement or my goals.

  • I have already mastered living below my means and saving while staying debt free. Living a smart, fun, and happy lifestyle.
  • I have read and studied many early retirement and financial independence books, websites and blogs and put into practice the ideas presented that would work for me.
  • I have run the numbers over and over under different scenarios so that I know things are set right.

When I ask myself, what is the worst that can happen? The answer is never that bad. This gives me confidence in my plan, I am a competent manager of my early retirement, and I am optimistic about my early retirement now and into the future.

I think that people who have the power of these three amigos going for them are mistakenly just called lucky. In reality it takes work and determination to create what others see as luck. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in luck and want all that I can find but it’s not always what actually gets us there.

Setbacks and Failure.

Optimism has another benefit as it helps me get through setbacks. There will always be setbacks but optimism is what tells me to stay positive and that I just learned something.

  • I now know more than I did before.
  • I have learned what not to do.
  • Optimism keeps me moving forward instead of frozen in fear and regret caused by a pessimistic mindset.

If you really think about it, do you know of any Debbie-Downers who actually made it to financial independence and early retirement? I sure don’t.

What part does optimism play in your life and reaching your early retirement or financial independence goals?

6 thoughts on “The Role Optimism Plays in Early Retirement”

  1. “When I ask myself, what is the worst that can happen? The answer is never that bad.”

    Same here.

    My optimism means that I’m staying at home now, so my optimism is probably costing us a few years on the early retirement front. But we’re optimistic that we’re on the right path.

    1. Hi Emily. It takes optimism to quit your career and stay home to raise your kids. An optimism that says it will work out financially and obviously it is best for the family. I love asking myself the “whats the worst that can happen” question. When you break it down it usually isn’t anything that couldn’t be overcome.
      Tommy

    1. Thanks for the comment Paul. I like that, “optimism is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy”. We have a choice on how to see things. Optimism seems to me to be the only choice.
      Tommy

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